A Trick and a Cheesy One-Liner
by EnterpriseCaptain
Summary: Kirk has a crush... Originally written because my friends said that it couldn't be done in-character with this length.


A Trick and a Cheesy One-Liner

By

Sadie Seddon-Stettler

**To Emily**

I told you I could do it

**Prologue**

It started when Bones noticed Kirk walking into doors a lot.

This was a bit unusual, as Kirk was normally pretty good at seeing solid objects.

But little by little, stuff started to add up.

Kirk showed up slightly later in the mess hall every day, and always at the exact same time.

His hair looked different. And was, for once, brushed.

His route from his room to the bridge changed, and was now longer for some reason.

Sometimes he would stop talking in the middle of a sentence, look around, and then keep talking with a vaguely disappointed look on his face.

Bones really started getting suspicious when Kirk actually showed up to eat for all three meals, five days in a row.

Things escalated when Bones walked by Kirk's room and heard him humming.

But the kicker really came the day Bones decided to show up at the bridge and watch Kirk for a while.

**Chapter One**

Bones was already in position when the doors to the bridge slid open. He had left his assistant in charge of med bay for a while so that he could come keep an eye on Kirk.

It proved worth it.

The doors glided open with a practiced smoothness, revealing Kirk standing there in command gold with his trademark smirk on his face.

Or wait…. Not a smirk.

A _smile_.

And he'd be damned if Kirk didn't look the tiniest bit shy.

Bones kept looking around to see if anyone else noticed anything, or if anything was different.

It took him a second, but eventually he noticed the new girl.

Kirk shot a quick glance at her, then looked smoothly away and walked in.

Less than two seconds later he walked into the railing and nearly fell over. A couple of people laughed, but he just chuckled awkwardly and walked quickly over to his chair, sitting down a little faster than was necessary.

The rest of the time that Bones was there seemed fairly normal.

That is, if you counted _fairly normal_ as Kirk glancing over at her every so often, occasionally seeming to show off a bit more, and forgetting how to perform basic tasks like record an entry in his Captain's Log.

Oh, and then there was the stuttering.

Bones wanted to make one thing very clear: Kirk didn't stutter. Ever. It was a common joke among the rest of the crew that Kirk had a more retorts than Bones himself had hypos; and was more eloquent at delivering them than the latter was at stabbing people with needles.

Lately, though, that rule seemed to have gone out the window. The king of comebacks himself was seen falling entirely short of his usual cheesy one-liner abilities, and on multiple occasions, too. Bones would have loved to attribute this to Kirk growing up a little bit, but unfortunately there was one common denominator he couldn't ignore.

The girl.

He sighed. Isn't there always a girl.

**Chapter Two**

Kirk was so _awkward_.

Not a term Bones would apply to the captain in any other situation; Kirk was ordinarily one of the most smooth, eloquent, confident-to-the-point-of-being-stupid people you'd ever meet, but…

There was absolutely no denying it. The guy had it bad.

Bones shook his head. He had sure been through some weird shit with Kirk as his captain, from pulling his frostbitten ass off Delta Vega, to relentlessly scanning him during missions (despite Kirk's protests), to getting Rand to intimidate that big baby into his medical exams, but he had to say. This was new.

It was, however, one of the most entertaining things that had happened aboard the Enterprise in quite some time. Pretty soon, Bones found himself wandering around the ship on his off shift, just_ trying_ to find the two of them together. Most of the time, he just ended up with sore feet and nothing to show for it. Kirk was good at covering his tracks.

But occasionally, very occasionally, it was worth it.

Exhibit A: What eventually came to be known throughout the Enterprise as the Rec Room Episode.

Kirk, Bones, Uhura, and a few other officers had reserved one of the larger Rec Rooms (the one with the big screen) for a movie marathon. Someone, bless their heart, invited her too. Due to some clever wrangling, they ended up sitting in the same row.

Next to each other.

And damn, it was the absolute cutest.

Bones could hardly concentrate on the movie, and he strongly suspected he wasn't the only one with this dilemma.

Kirk was just so _cute_.

It was literally impossible to pay attention to the screen when there was one of the most crushed people ever sitting two rows in front of him. Kirk would look at her every few lines, then shift quickly to face front and eat popcorn to cover the blush that was doubtless there. You could practically feel Kirk's hair standing on end.

Kirk accidentally bumped her arm at one point, and Bones thought his captain was either going to melt or die of embarrassment.

_That _escapade ended with them accidentally walking out the same door and Kirk aggressively looking anywhere but her.

Then there was Exhibit B: every mealtime ever.

Bones had first started getting suspicious about this whole business when Kirk actually showed up for all three meals, five days in a row (which never happened, Kirk wasn't really one for regular food intake) and it was starting to make sense.

Bones showed up a little earlier every day just to watch it play out like clockwork. It was especially entertaining at breakfast.

Kirk would walk in every morning at roughly the same time, actually looking somewhat put together for once. He'd grab a cup of something hot (_not_ coffee, Bones didn't let him have that after Kirk had an allergic reaction at breakfast) then sit down with someone.

Not that he'd actually pay attention to the conversation, oh no.

He'd pretend to, sure, but all his actual concentration was focused on glancing around the room every two seconds.

Until she showed up, that is. The second that happened, he turned back to the table and usually choked on his drink. Once he had recovered from that, he jumped up from the table and followed her over to the replicators.

Bones watched with amusement as Kirk made a fool out of himself trying to get breakfast. A grown-ass man, captain of a Starfleet vessel, suddenly incapable of selecting bread.

The most amusing part was watching him panic as he tried to pick something to eat. Bones could just imagine his thought process:

"Apples, yeah sure, okay, apples are a safe bet…"

"I want cereal but am I going to look like an idiot eating cereal?"

"Oh god do you think she likes muffins?!"

"Orange juice is impressive… right?"

"I'm sure as hell not getting… oh wait no that's what she's eating I better grab some too…"

This was the one time in history Bones really wanted to get inside James Tiberius Kirk's head.

He could just imagine the panic.

Frankly, the first few times Bones had seen Kirk crushed on this girl, it had seriously surprised him and, if he was honest, confused him. At least in the beginning.

Bones had been friends with Kirk for a long time, long enough to know him pretty well. Or so he had previously thought. To be frank, he hadn't actually see Kirk ever get a genuine _crush_ on a girl. He'd bring girls back to his room all the time, sure, but he never really dated any of them. Certainly never for any length of time.

This was actually… breaking the pattern…

Usually Kirk would find an excuse to flirt with several people on a given day. Maybe just one if he was in a bad mood. Not lately, though.

Lately, Kirk had eyes for one girl. And really, only one.

No, honestly. Just the one.

It had taken serious work for Bones to convince anyone else of this.

That is, until Bones took Sulu to the mess hall and they watched as Kirk got her coffee, carefully avoided touching said coffee, found her a table, didn't stop awkwardly attempting (and failing) to talk the entire time, tripped over at least three chairs, and didn't flirt with a single girl on the way over.

Sulu was speechless. So was Bones.

So Bones figured it was about time he _talked _to Kirk about it.

**Chapter Three**

Bones decided to confront him on a calm day. One where they weren't dealing with aliens shooting at them, mysterious planets, or anything else.

He knew that the second he started talking to Kirk, Kirk would try his best to get out of the conversation, so he fought like hell to get Kirk in a situation he couldn't get out of.

This was not an easy situation to find. Kirk was generally able to talk himself out of… really anything. Rumor had it, he had once talked himself and his entire class out of a mandatory lecture back at the Academy just because there were flowers on the desk. His skills were legendary.

At least, that's what Kirk himself told everybody. Which left Bones with the dubiously challenging task of beating him at his own game.

For once, Bones was up for it.

He figured his best chance was to catch the captain at the gym.

He walked in to find Kirk (predictably) whaling on a punching bag. He stepped up to the bag next to Kirk's and threw a few punches himself before starting the conversation.

"Hey, Jim?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you busy?"

"No?"

"Are you about to be?"

"…No?"

"Great. I need to talk to you."

"Any particular reason?"

"Yes."

"A bad one?"

"No, everything's fine. Mostly."

"Is something _not_ fine?"

Bones' face straightened.

"Yeah. You."

Kirk looked confused and stopped punching.

"I'm sorry, how am _I_ not fine?"

Bones launched into a brief explanation. Kirk immediately and predictably objected.

"I am not."

"Yes, you are."

"Admit it. You like her.

Kirk resumed punching.

"Do not."

"Jim, you skipped out on two meetings to walk around the ship with her, pointlessly! You made multiple loops around the same part of the science section just to avoid stopping the conversation. A conversation you were barely managing to carry out due to _shyness_, I might add."

There was a brief pause.

"Okay, that I did do."

"Yes. And there's a damn good reason."

Kirk shook his head a little.

"She's just a crewmate. Sure, she's a good one, and a great person, but she's just a crewmate, Bones.

Bones rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, right. We both know you can barely string together a coherent sentence talking to her."

Kirk was obviously trying to ignore his friend at this point, staring directly at the punching bag and hitting it very deliberately. 

"That proves nothing."

"That proves everything!"

"How?"

"When was the last time you actually had a long-term crush on someone?"

"Define long-term."

"See. This is different."

Kirk sighed and looked over at Bones, resting his hands on the punching bag.

"How can _you_ tell, but no one else can?"

"Jim, believe me, I'm not the only…." Seeing the look on Kirk's face, he trailed off. "Okay, never mind. Kid, wake up and smell the deadly space vacuum." Kirk looked confused. "It's as obvious as the stripes on your shirt, if you know what to look for. Which I do."

Kirk looked confused for a few more seconds, before his face straightened. He was obviously remembering that Bones had been married.

"Frankly, Jim, I'm amazed your XO hasn't noticed a damn thing-"

Kirk pulled around to face Bones again.

"I swear to god, you tell him about this and I will court-martial your ass so hard-"

Bones laughed, which seemed to relax Kirk.

"Even if I did tell him, all he'd do is say 'fascinating' and possibly raise an eyebrow."

Kirk agreed.

"Look, kid." Bones was looking at him with a mixture of amusement and pity now. "You're usually Mr. Smooth." Kirk smirked a little at that. "Not a compliment-"

"Yeah, it was."

"That's not the point. The point is, you're treating this gal differently than you treat _anyone_. Hell, you're treating her better than you treat yourself."

Kirk looked affronted.

"Let's face it, we both know you have a habit of ignoring your own needs to get the job done. But I'm off track again. Jim, you're usually Mr. Smooth, but apparently not when it comes to this."

Kirk had started to turn back to the punching bag in an effort to get out of the conversation, but Bones was having none of it.

"If you want to have any chance at all with this girl-"

Kirk's eyebrows went up and his eyes widened.

"Yes, I'm fine with it. Why wouldn't I be? Hell, if I have any complaint, it's that this is a little out of the ordinary. But if you want to have any chance at all…"

"Kirk's expression changed to one of anticipation.

"…Clean up your act and ask her out. In a coherent, grammatical sentence."

"Hang on a second-"

"We both know you want to. Go."

Kirk looked alarmed.

"Now?!"

"Yes."

With that, Bones patted his captain on the shoulder, and strolled out, satisfied knowing that Kirk was in good hands. He was confident he'd seen everything that went down in there.

What he didn't see, however, was the little smile on Kirk's face as he waited in the gym, doubtless forming a plan.


End file.
